Jersey City Officer Marc DiNardo dies from shootout wounds

JERSEY CITY -- Police officer Marc DiNardo, one of five officers shot in a fierce gun battle in the city last week, has died after days on life support, the mayor said today.

DiNardo, 37, a father of three and a 10-year veteran of the force, was hit in the face during the shootout with two suspects in a Reed Street apartment. He was the most seriously injured of the officers. The two suspects were killed at the scene.

Aristide Economopoulos/The Star-LedgerMelissa Bartholomew walks away after a news conference Monday where it was announced that fellow officer Marc DiNardo is near death after being shot in the face last week. She was in the same cadet class with him in the police academy and is good friends with him and his family. She spoke on behalf of his family.

Joseph Scott, president and chief executive officer of Jersey City Medical Center, said DiNardo's family is donating his organs.

DiNardo, who would have turned 38 Wednesday, is survived by his wife, two daughters, ages 4 and 1, a 3-year-old son and his parents. His father is a retired Jersey City police lieutenant.

file photoJersey City Police Officer Marc DiNardo.

The shootout began around 6:45 a.m. Thursday, when DiNardo and other members of an elite emergency-services unit raided Hassan Shakur's and Amanda Anderson's apartment after Shakur shot two officers on the street earlier in the morning. Officer Michael Camacho used a battering ram to break open the door, and DiNardo carried an entry shotgun.

Authorities said DiNardo's heart stopped repeatedly in the hours after he was shot, calling it a "miracle" he made it through surgery.

Camacho, 25, a five-year police veteran who was shot in the neck, was upgraded over the weekend from critical to serious but guarded condition at the hospital. The other three officers were treated at the Jersey City hospital and released.

The apartment shootout followed hours of surveillance by city Detective Marc Lavelle and Lt. Michael Kelly. The pair had been watching a red Ford Focus believed to have been the getaway car in a June 18 shooting. In that case, two people ambushed a van driver as he arrived for work at 30 Minute Oil Change on Broadway in an industrial section of the city.